My Total Disaster
By rosso-bass
Chapter 3: My Nightmare
AN: Thanks for the reviews guys! I've been away to visit my sister in a distant land, but I'm back. And also, be patient! Our other characters are going to be getting some page time soon!
Day 5 of Hospital Quarantine
After a long enough time in being right in the middle of a crisis, you'd expect yourself to adapt. And in a way you do. You learn to manage the fear you're having, but you're constantly attacked by even more fears, and you have to adapt to those. Long story short, it doesn't get much easier, especially when you know that there may be a biological time-bomb ticking away in your guts.
I hadn't had any contact with anybody outside the hospital, as for some reason or another, the response team had shut down the outgoing phone lines. Undoubtedly, Elliot had learned what had happened and was freaking out, which would lead to Carla finding out, which would lead to Turk finding out. Hopefully, the chain stopped there, but it was possible that Turk was freaking out more than any of us.
As for myself, I tried to keep the worst out of my mind, and held out hope. But that stopped when Leo, St. Vincent's lead chef, sneezed contaminated snot into the last batch of mashed potatoes, and decided not to tell anybody.
Managing patients had become difficult for J.D. when always encumbered by his bio-safe suit. While Mr. Jacobsen, though worsening, was still stable, other patients in the ICU particularly coded and it fell to him as the most experienced doctor still in the hospital to manage this. The other staff were continually wary of him, and he had to explain several times a day that the suit would prevent the virus from spreading from him to others, if he had even contracted it.
It sometimes amazed him how quickly a hospital could run out of supplies, but he was unable to appreciate the irony today. He was the de facto chief of medicine in Mantoot's absence, and the dwindling supply of medicines, coupled with an exhausted, terrified, and outnumbered staff, served to place more than a few gray hairs on his head. He had passed his concerns on to Dr. Jackson, who simply responded that they were attempting to remedy the situation, a vague assurance that held no weight.
After four full days of being awake, interrupted only by a handful of powernaps, J.D. realized he was likely becoming a danger to his patients, not to mention the other doctors and nurses. Luckily, the surgeons trapped in the hospital had not been particularly overburdened, as emergency cases had been redirected to nearby hospitals. They often did nothing, however, to throw in a helping hand with the nightmare in the internal medicine department.
So far, luckily, no one besides Mr. Jacobsen had shown symptoms of the deadly Ebola Zaire, including J.D. When Mr. Jacobsen died-
Don't think like that!
-and none of the others showed any symptoms for 30 days, which would ensure the death of the virus in the area, they would all get to go home.
A pulsing beep pulled J.D. out of his snooze while he leaned against the wall, and he looked down to the beeper clipped to a zipper on the suit. A minute later, he met Dr. Jackson, also clad in his safe suit.
"You go get some rest, Dr. Dorian," Dr. Jackson said sympathetically. "Even behind that mask, you look like hell. Kinda like the shaggy dog."
Oh nooooo, my hair!
J.D. calmed his shrieking inner monologue and gave Dr. Jackson one of the sincerest thanks he'd ever given.
"Oh," and Dr. Jackson said, stopping him. "Remember to sleep in the Quarantined call room on the second floor. I still wouldn't take that suit off if I were you." J.D. nodded without turning around and kept walking. He heard another beep behind him, and a hesitant voice.
"Uh… Dr. Dorian?" It was the bad news voice. J.D.'s inner monologue urged him to run before he could be stopped, but he couldn't budge himself. He turned around, irritated but prepared for the worst. Dr. Jackson looked up from his beeper with wide eyes.
Crap…
"We've got another one," Dr. Jackson said. J.D.'s heart leapt while his stomach sank.
"What? Who?" He said hurriedly, rushing over to Dr. Jackson to look at his beeper.
"Oh no," J.D. said aloud. "Not him."
"What's wrong?" Dr. Jackson asked, his composed demeanor dropping away.
"He's the cook." Dr. Jackson's hand leapt to his radio.
"Evacuate all unsealed food from the cafeteria! Anybody who's eating, quarantine them now!"
Suddenly, the hopeful outcome J.D. had envisioned, vanished. From the message of a single beeper, the virus that looked to be contained had possibly exploded into the entire hospital.
"Dr. Jackson," J.D. said quietly. "We don't have enough rooms to quarantine everybody individually."
"I know that," he said, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. "We'll do what we can, but some people will have to be quarantined together. When one shows symptoms, we'll jump to a room with others who have been infected."
"What?!" J.D. shouted. The few personnel walking about stopped and looked at the pair. "That's insane! If-"
"Please, keep your voice low, Dr-"
"If you put them together, it won't matter if you pick one of them out when they show symptoms, you'll have a room full of dead people anyway!" The people about them began to chatter, and it was clear everybody was on the verge of panic.
"Don't worry, people," Dr. Jackson said to the people in the hallway, placing his hands out as if physically steadying them. "We're simply discussing protocol should more complications arise." They stared warily, and Dr. Jackson's eyes turned to J.D., silently scolding him for his outburst. J.D. nodded, understandingly. He had to keep it together, not just for his own sake.
"Now," Dr. Jackson said steadily. "Go check on our patient and you can hit the sack." J.D. nodded wearily, his head swimming. His feet carried him automatically to the quarantine room being set up. The safe suit men waved him through, and he entered the room.
Leo, a burly man with a handlebar moustache, had tattoos snaking down his arms and up his neck. A confederate flag had been fashioned into a bandana on his head. Leo looked like a man who would only end up in a hospital bed if he crashed during a motorcycle rally.
Dried blood hung in his nostrils, and sweat had beaded on his forehead. He was awake, but his dark eyes were nearly closed. He regarded J.D. with a dazed stare.
"How ya doin'?" he said weakly.
"Hey, Leo," J.D. said as cheerfully as he could muster. "I have to ask you a couple questions." He realized then he'd forgotten to find a chart or a clipboard. Most likely, nobody had ever printed one out.
"Sure." Leo said. J.D. stood by his bedside and also realized he could not measure his breathing. He took a temperature reading, which hung at 101. J.D. tried to hide the worry on his face, but it seemed Leo was in no condition to notice anyway.
"How long have you been feeling off, Leo?" J.D. asked.
"Just yesterday. Felt a little grimy, I guess." Grimy, hard to decipher that one.
"Why didn't you tell anybody?"
"Well, it's always hot in the kitchen, I just figured it was that."
"What else have you been feeling?"
"Nothing. Just hot. Tired too. Then today, I was crapping blood. I flipped." He was already hemorrhaging. He didn't know when Mr. Jacobsen had picked up the disease, but J.D. had read the general incubation period of Ebola was five days. And he hadn't heard of it progressing so fast, ever.
"Have you had any contact with the food in the cafeteria?" J.D. asked.
"'Course. I'm the cook."
"Have any bodily fluids made it into the food?" Leo remained silent, his graying eyebrows dropping down over his eyes.
"Leo?" Silence.
"Leo, this is very important."
"Yeah…" he conceded finally. "I sneezed into the potatoes this morning."
"And you served them?" Leo's head sank into his chest.
"Am I going to hell?" he asked. It seemed a juvenile question, but Leo's hands were shaking, and he stared sadly into his own lap.
"Leo, did you serve the potatoes?" there was a long pause. And then-
"Yeah. I served them." J.D.'s heart sank. He didn't even know what to do with the information, except pass it along. He walked over to the wall, wishing there was a window there. He relayed the information through the radio.
"Understood," a voice said in response.
J.D. sat at the wall a moment, allowing his head to rest against the wall. His fatigue clouded his mind, but even if it hadn't, he didn't know if his mind could cope with the enormity of the situation. His best actions, the best actions of the best of the country hadn't been enough. It would be a miracle if nobody died before this nightmare was over.
After another moment, J.D. returned to Leo's bedside. He unhooked the urine bag hanging on the stand and replaced it with a new one.
"Need a urine sample confirmed," he said into the radio. He was not panicking anymore. His fears had been realized, and yet he was calm. Overwhelmed, but calm.
He passed the urine bag through the cracked door to a gloved hand.
"I'm coming out," J.D. said.
"Sure thing," somebody responded. J.D. walked back to the counter where he'd left the radio. He didn't look at Leo. He was not mad at Leo, wasn't disgusted, ashamed or disappointed, but he needed some time alone.
"I'll be back in the morning, Leo," J.D. said as he passed.
"Don't leave," Leo said weakly. J.D. stopped and turned to him. Leo, tough as seemed, looked pathetic. His thick hand was lifted up, stretched towards J.D., and a pair of tears rolled over and off his face.
"Please," Leo said, his hand still hovering. Self-preservation gripped J.D.'s emotions, and honestly, he didn't care a whole lot how Leo felt at this particular moment. He turned to leave.
"I'm scared," Leo said, his voice thick. It was something Leo probably hadn't said since he hit puberty. He began to sob quietly, pulling back his hands into his chest. J.D. wanted so bad to leave, to just go to the call room and collapse. He needed it more than he ever had during medical school or his internship. But his conscience, the one he sometimes cursed, stabbed him repeatedly in the heart. J.D. turned back and pulled up a chair next to Leo, who cried, sputtering thank-you's. He reached out before J.D. could object and grabbed his hand. J.D.'s hand was limp for a moment, but he squeezed reassuringly.
Throughout my career, I'd always struggled to find that one great moment that defined me as a doctor. Usually, I'd looked to the moments where I made an impressive diagnosis or I brought somebody back from the dead. But in this moment, I realized that all of these things didn't speak about me as a doctor. No matter how much somebody else will try to convince you, and no matter how much a person becomes convinced themselves, being a doctor is never about you. The very nature of the profession contradicts being self-centered.
So, as I held Leo's man-hand, I saw this one moment as that moment that defined me as a doctor, the one I'd been trying to find for almost a decade. I threw away my own concerns and I gave myself to the patient, no- the person. And maybe that's what Dr. Cox had been trying to teach me all along. Maybe I'd never found out. Regardless, my moment wasn't a prideful one, but it was peaceful one.
